


After the Fall

by JulietBlue



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, John's Reichenbach Feels, Post-The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:16:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulietBlue/pseuds/JulietBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John grieves Sherlock. Approximately one week after Sherlock falls. Written two years ago, before series three, for an English short story in school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Fall

The flat felt empty and lifeless. There was a stillness to the air, a feeling of loss and abandon. The single occupier of the room was sitting hunched in an armchair, facing the empty fireplace, staring into space. Dr John Watson had not moved since that morning, his week old jumper covered in tea-stains, his bare feet tinged blue from the chill in flat.

A noise behind him broke the hours-old silence, the scuffling of keys in the front door as Mrs Hudson struggled into the room, carrying several bags of groceries. John twitched ever so slightly in reaction to her entrance as she filled the dead air with a sense of warmth and vitality the room had been lacking. John closed his eyes, blinking away the tears that were beginning to form. He brushed any droplets in his eyelashes away hastily and turned to see Mrs Hudson putting food into the cupboards and boiling the kettle. When she opened the fridge he felt a tug on his heart to see it so empty, free from human eyeballs, litters of mice, experiments to test the coagulation of saliva after death, all gone, all cleared out, with him.

His flatmate. His best friend. His partner-in-crime. Dead. Gone forever. John felt a gut-wrenching sensation every time he even thought the name, and he tried his hardest to fight off a fresh wave of tears. Mrs Hudson glanced over at him warily, saw the pools appearing in his watery eyes and began to busy herself with the cups and biscuit tin.

‘Cup of tea, dear?’ Mrs Hudson asked, offering him a steaming mug. He took the cup wordlessly as Mrs Hudson sat in the chair opposite him, sipping her tea, with a plate of biscuits on her lap. John gave a slight jerk of irritation to see her in _his_ chair. That was Sherlock’s chair, where he did his thinking when he was not too busy pacing about, walking on the furniture, or micro-pipetting in the kitchen-cum-lab. Over by the window, his violin was resting in its stand, gathering dust, looking forlorn, not having been touched for nearly two weeks. John remembered with a sigh Sherlock’s habit of playing his violin at all hours of the day, and night, choosing not to talk for days on end. It used to drive John up the wall but he would do anything now to see it again.

John brought himself back to the present and realised that Mrs Hudson had been nattering on the whole time he’d been wrapped in his thoughts of Sherlock. He could still barely comprehend that a man of such life and energy would end it all. He refused to believe the tabloids; they all almost seemed happy Sherlock died, a nice juicy story about the world-class genius shown to be a fake and taking his own life in disgrace. John was haunted by flashbacks of Sherlock's fall; he remembered the phone call, his "note", as Sherlock had said, he was on the street below, watching the whole thing, refusing to acknowledge that things were unfolding as they were, barely believing his ears as he heard Sherlock _crying_ on the phone. And then, the fall. Oh God, the fall. He saw Sherlock's body flying through the air, his coat fluttering behind him, making him look like some kind of caped superhero, and he watched as Sherlock hit the ground, his broken body crumpled on the pavement, covered in blood.

Mrs Hudson had been talking to John all while he'd been encompassed in the vicious memory of Sherlock's fall. 'And look what he'd done to my bloody wall. Don't you remember? He spray-painted that yellow smiley and then _shot_ it one day!'

'What? Oh, yes. He was bored,' John replied, slightly dazed.

'Bored. Huh, yes. He was always "bored" when there wasn't a delightfully interesting murder to solve or and impossible bank-robbery. What went though that man's mind I'll never know,' Mrs Hudson said, reminiscing Sherlock's bizarre hobbies and the way they would infuriate everyone.

John stood up suddenly, unable to listen to her talk about Sherlock anymore. He was still too raw, too fresh. It was just too soon after fall. He had been gone barely a week now; they hadn't even had the funeral yet. There had been a considerable amount of police interest in the case, he was well known by many, and his credibility was being questioned by the papers.

'John?' Mrs Hudson asked cautiously.

'Off out,' he replied, pulling on his leather jacket that had been hanging on the door next to Sherlock's scarf. 'I'm going down to Scotland Yard to visit Lestrade. I need to talk to him.'

'Oh, all right. Have you finished your tea, dear? Would you like a biscuit before you go?' she said, offering him the plate from her lap.

'No, no. Thanks Mrs Hudson but I'll just go straight there now,' he replied, putting on his shoes and standing up to leave.

'You'll want to wrap up a bit more dear, it's chilly out there,' she said, taking the scarf down from the back of the door and handing it to him.

'That's Sherlock's scarf,' he said blankly.

'Oh, my, yes. I'm sorry dear. I'll just go find you one, em... Right,' she flustered, unsure of herself.

'It's fine, Mrs Hudson. I'll just go now,' he said, leaving the flat and walking down the stairs to the front door. He walked out onto the street and took a deep breathe of air, looking around him, having barely ventured outside the front door since the fall. He hailed a cab out on the street and hopped in the back, sighing as the cab pulled away from Baker Street. He sat back in his seat and looked out the window, watching the world pass by. He listened to the cabby's home-base radio with disinterest as it buzzed with static before a short unintelligible message was heard, making no sense, filling the quiet of the taxi. John noticed all the people on the streets of London, walking around, carrying briefcases, talking on their mobiles, living their lives as though nothing had happened, as he looked on, breaking inside, still hurting, wondering if life gets better.

The cab pulled up outside New Scotland Yard, a big shiny glass building only recently constructed, swarming with black-uniformed officers and smart men and women rushing about in neat suits with paper cups of coffee in their hands, an area of constant noise, movement and activity. John stepped out of the cab, handed the driver a twenty-pound note and ascended the steps to the front door.  Once inside, he headed straight to the third floor and up to Detective Inspector Lestrade's office, passing both Sergeant Donovan and Anderson on the way looking far more cheerful than they should. He rapped on Lestrade's door three times before entering and taking the seat across from him. Lestrade looked up from the papers he was reading, surprised, which turned to an expression of sadness when he saw a depressed John sitting on the other side of his desk.

'John,' he said warily, concerned as to why he might be her.

'Hey, Greg. How's, erm, the investigation, um, going?' John asked, choking slightly.

'On Sherlock's suicide? Well, there’s nothing much new yet. It’s pretty obvious how it happened, there were many witnesses. It’s just the why we’re really concerned about,' he replied nervously, watching to see how John would react.

'Yeah, yeah, of course. God, I keep seeing him, there, on the ground.  On a slab in Bart's hospital…' John said, trailing off at the end, remembering Sherlock's cold white unmoving body, dressed in only a sheet, looking like a fallen angel.

'Yes, well, as I said, the why,' Greg said anxiously, wondering how John had been coping with the loss.

'Everywhere I go,' John began, 'I see people, acting like there is nothing wrong, just living their lives, no different to before. I tune into conversations around me, and everyone is talking about everything and nothing. Nobody seems to realise that such a great man has been taken from us, thanks to tabloid gossip and false rumours, all created by his biggest enemy, "his nemesis", as he'd say, oh he so did like to be dramatic. Thanks to the power of the Internet and vicious people with nothing better to do but bitch about everything, and everyone around me just carries on as normal. I mean,' he broke down crying, and Greg leapt up from behind his desk and awkwardly put his arm around John’s shoulder. John swallowed some tears before continuing, 'I saw Donovan and Anderson today on the way in, and they're out there, acting like nothing has happened, almost looking happy that he's gone. They were a part of this whole thing, latching on to the idea that Sherlock might be fake, creating theories and stories that don't fit the facts but suit them, rallying for his arrest. And now Sherlock is in Bart's, waiting to be buried, I'm here struggling to understand it all, while they walk around, unaffected. I'm feel like I’m drowning Greg, I really do. I'm drowning and my best friend, Sherlock Holmes, is dead.'

**Author's Note:**

> This was written two years ago, but I felt I should upload it on A03 anyway. It was written as a short story for English class, with all the names changed so that my teacher wouldn't realise I was writing fanfiction. Please review, even if you thought it was pretty weak, I could do with all the feedback you can offer.


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